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Monday, July 13, 2015

State of The Tavern - Late Hours and Other Changes

Last night was the start of my new summer hours at work - 130 pm to 10 pm with Friday and Saturday as my days off. Yeah, it's playing havoc with home life and hobby life.

On the hobby life side, it's simply buggering my creativity. The hours my brain is conditioned to create I'm now sitting at a desk at work supervising detectives and dealing with virtual fires, big and small.

I get home from that and I want to decompress, not write. So, there will be an adjustment period as my brain rewires slightly. I'm sure by the time that happens, I'll be back to my normal hours ;)

On a more exciting note, I'm lucky enough to have been chosen by The RPGPundit (as well as some good friends on G+) to receive a print copy of Dark Albion to read and review. I am stoked! Yes, this will be going right to the top of the review pile. Heck, it might not even make it to the pile as it may just snag it the moment it arrives at my doorstep.

Dark Albion has the potential to hit multiple sweet points for me as I have my BA in History with a focus on England from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance and I'm a fan of historical fiction. I suspect The Pundit is in his element with this release. The few reviews I've seen trickle in thus far have been highly positive.

Back to the creativity part - I have small three pieces for White Starwritten to various extents. I'm hoping to bang one or another to completion tonight or tomorrow.

21 comments:

I'd be interested to see a review, especially as "Arrows of Indra" seems to have "borrowed" pretty heavily from an older game (http://thoulsparadise.blogspot.com/2014/12/was-empire-of-petal-throne-one-of-main.html). Here's hoping he does right by his sources this time around.

What Mike has posted is propagandistic gibberish from the usual anti-pundit crowd (the goons from a certain something-awful-related blog). I did with Arrows of Indra what the OSR is all about doing: using mechanics from all over the old-school spectrum. I nowhere cut and paste, and only a lying asshole or an ignoramus could claim that I "borrowed heavily". The ENTIRETY of Arrows of Indra was written by myself, 100% of the rules, 100% of the setting. And the book has more setting material than rules material by an important margin.

In the case of Dark Albion, it's over 80% setting material (which is not to say it doesn't have a lot of interesting random tables and such). It is, again, 100% my own work unless you're talking about the parts where Dominique Crouzet was a contributor, which are clearly marked in the end credits (he added to several important parts of the text as well as doing all the art and layout).

I presume that Mike is one of the goon-Swine, and he's posting this in bad faith. If so Mike, go fuck yourself with a spoon. You failed at "taking me down" before, and you'll fail again. But by all means, make up whatever bullshit you want about Dark Albion over in your little hole, it will only help make me money.And if perchance you're not bringing up discredited bullshit from a year ago out of partisanship and just happened to have stumbled upon it, then ignore the above but fucking educate yourself, man.

Ah, Pundit, every time I'm tempted to spend money on one of your projects, you graciously show up and remind me that I'm suppose to be part of a grand conspiracy against you, whose sole goal is to keep the world from realizing that you are the single greatest RPG mind ever in existence.

But then you remind me, and I get to save my money. Thank you for that.

If you want to miss out on Dark Albion because I'm a mean poopyhead for being righteously pissed off at a group of people who have gone out of their way to try to slander me and destroy my career, you won't be missed. It'll be your loss, because based on early results (#6 on RPGnow, for example), Dark Albion is going to be very popular, and for good reason.

Ooookay. I don't think "Thoul's paradise" has anything to do with "Something awful." I'm not all that familiar with Something Awful apart from a fairly funny series they did on TSR's artwork about like 10 years ago.Based on your reasoned response I'm guessing it doesn't matter though. If you really are the target of some kind of organized attack, that sucks. (Though there can be no pretending you don't seek controversy. You reap what you sow.)Looking forward to reading a review anyway.

These guys aren't even "sjws" or something like that, though they sometimes put on the mask of one if they find it convenient; but they routinely use language and insult in a way that no self-respecting pseudo-activist would ever publicly do (including having called me a "Spic"). They're just blatant trolls who despise "Grognards" of all kinds. From what I understand, they were mostly 3.5 or 4e fans. They dedicate insane amounts of their time to attacking me, Zak S, and James Raggi, as well as other OSR writers to a lesser extent. They haven't had exactly nice things to say about Tenkar, for example, who they routinely refer to as 'Turdkar" - that gives you an idea of their maturity level, and they've called him "stupid", useless, and 'textbook social retard' (which doesn't compare to the things they've called Zak, or the women he games with who they've described as "his syphilitic harem" as well as saying far far worse things about Mandy). They refer to Jeff Rients as a 'random table spammer' who "shit the bed he jumped into with Raggi"; Jeff freaking Rients, who is about as inoffensive an OSR personality as you can imagine! So think hard whether you want to buy into what these assholes are selling.

That's a rabbit hole I didn't need to know about. :(I'm not buying what "they" are selling.I find it hard to believe that the resemblance between Tekumel priests and AOI priests is purely coincidental, and mystifying why you wouldn't either come out say "they are similar because I like Barker's ideas and reused them" or "they are similar because we both consulted similar sources" or whatever the explanation is, but instead lump me with the "they".Anyway this is totally off topic, you should be talking about your new product (best of luck with it!) and I didn't mean to derail the whole post. I just wanted to Erik to be aware of my question.

And you can stop pretending now like your original post here was for ANY purpose other than to derail the popularity of Dark Albion. Yeah, I'm sure your heart is just bleeding about how "this is totally off topic" after you planted that turd in the first comment as a way to attack my character with absurd trolling, you ass.

"The review itself reveals the shocking (shocking!) fact that Arrows of Indra uses a lot of mechanical inspiration from old-school games, including several editions of D&D, Barker's Petal Throne (which was itself an RPG in a setting inspired by the same Indian myths as Arrows of Indra, but in a much weirder world that mixed in some sci-fantasy stuff), as well as other OSR games.

Yup, I didn't read all of the linked thread, way to much going on to sift through it. Wouldn't it have been easier to just say "You heard wrong, I give Barker credit for whatever of his I used"? Jesus.

Look, I don't know you from Adam, and the thing you have to understand is that it is STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE for the Goon-Swine from SA and YDIS to show up with a sock-puppet, feigning innocence while they drop one of their deceptive shit-bombs meant to toxify whatever they hate.

So at this point I've just come to assume that if someone who I don't already know shows up explicitly to promote their bullshit, it's probably a plant.

Tenkar's Tavern is supported by various affiliate programs, including Amazon, RPGNow, and Humble Bundleas well asPatreon. Your patronage is appreciated and helps keep the lights on and the taps flowing - Your Humble Bartender, Tenkar

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Why "Swords & Wizardry?"

Believe me when I say I have them all in dead tree format. I have OSRIC in full size, trade paperback and the Player's Guide. I have LL and the AEC (and somewhere OEC, but I can't find it at the moment). Obviously I have Basic Fantasy RPG. Actually, I have the whole available line in print. Way too much Castles & Crusades. We all know my love for the DCC RPG. I even have Dark Dungeons in print, the Delving Deeper boxed set, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea (thank you Kickstarter) (edit) BOTH editions of LotFP's Weird Fantasy and will soon have some dead tree copies of the Greyhawk Grognards Adventures Dark & Deep shipping shortly in my grubby hands awaiting a review..

I am so deep in the OSR when I come up for breath it's for the OSR's cousin, Tunnels & Trolls (and still waiting on dT&T to ship).

So, out of all that, why Swords & Wizardry? Why, when I have been running a AD&D 1e / OSRIC campaign in Rappan Athuk am I using Swords & Wizardry and it's variant, Crypts & Things, for the second campaign? (Actually, now running a S&W Complete campaign, soon to be with multiple groups)

Because the shit works.

It's easy for lapsed gamers to pick up and feel like they haven't lost a step. I can house rule it and it doesn't break. It plays so close to the AD&D of my youth and college years (S&W Complete especially) that it continually surprises me. Just much less rules hopping than I remember. (my God but I can run it nearly without the book)

I grab and pick and steal from just about all OSR and Original resources. They seem to fit into S&W with little fuss. It may be the same with LL and the rest, but for me the ease of use fit's my expectations with S&W.

Even the single saving throw. That took me longer to adjust to, but even that seems like a natural to me now. Don't ask me why, it just does. Maybe it's the simplicity of it. At 45 48, simplicity and flexibility while remaining true to the feel of the original is an OSR hat trick for me ;)